[TML] Joel brings the New Year in with a bang!

[rpg]

Glad to hear you're OK Joel, sounds like a near thing!

For future reference you'd have been better off without using the clutch
(keep your feet off all pedals) coasting with the drive disengaged makes
cornering considerably more uncontrolable.
Gasoline engines actually work quite well for breaking purposes when the
throttle is closed.

In the distant past I've had to drive 30 miles with no footbrake, and on
another occation from Italy to England with very minimal brakes, so I have
had some practice - fortunaly that all remained on the black stuff.

If you get the chance to play about on a skid pan I recomended it too! (Its
great for learning to control slides by reflex)

Mike




-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com]On Behalf Of
traveller at dhimaging.com.au
Sent: 04 January 2008 09:11
To: 'The Traveller Mailing List'
Subject: [TML] Joel brings the New Year in with a bang!


Well, where to begin.

I left the house 30-Dec to get some groceries stocked up for New Years Eve
and New Years Day.

On the way back with a car full of groceries and some pizza for tea, the sun
was very low and brightly glaring in my windscreen.  I came up on a sharp
curve and standing in the middle of the road (but slightly in my lane of
traffic) was a giant 'roo.

I swerved to my left to avoid hitting it, but my left tyres went off the
bitumen (pavement) and I started losing control.   I then started steering
to the right to compensate and I tried to apply the clutch to let the car
slow down (rather than slamming the brakes on).

Good plan, but the car only sped up!  Little did I know that in my excited
state, I was actually applying full throttle to the accelerator rather than
applying the clutch.

Sigh.

At one point, I was sliding backwards down my lane of traffic, slowly
spinning.  When I saw the edge of the road and the trees growing up from it,
I knew it was bad.  Then the Jeep hit (something), the view out the
windscreen tilted (hard), and I remember being ejected through either the
passenger side window or the removable hard top.  I'm still not sure which
one, but the amount of glass they plucked out of my head makes me think it
was the window.

I lost consciousness and when I woke up, I was lying on the hardtop, the
Jeep was on its side with the motor still running, and someone was telling
me "it's going to be okay, but for GOD'S sake - DON'T MOVE!".

A few days in Hospital (they were worried about the loss of consciousness,
the cuts on my head, and the massively large bruises all over my abdomen and
thighs), and they finally let me out.

The Jeep is a write-off (the frame is wrecked.  The wrecker operator says
the frame on a Jeep Wrangler is a very heavy duty type and for it to be
twisted and warped as bad as it was, it must have been a pretty bad
accident) - I have some car yards preparing quotes to buy what's left off of
me (for parts).  I had recently fallen on hard times and the car did not
have insurance.

I've secured financing for another vehicle (2nd hand, but in great shape and
with a 3-year bumper-to-bumper warranty) and I just drove it to the house
about an hour ago.  I went VERY slowly and when I went past the place I
wrecked the Jeep, I was amazed.  If I had gone off the other side of the
road, there was a 20-meter fall-off and it was wall-to-wall pine trees.  No
way would I have survived.  And to be honest, everyone keeps telling me that
normally if a person is ejected from a vehicle when it's involved in a very
bad accident, they don't survive to talk about it.

=sigh=

So, what did I miss?

-Joel


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